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its animal and vegetal nature. To the motile forms belongs a psychic or 

 mental character, whether they be animals or plants- A most interesting 

 exposition of the psychic development attained by motile plants, like the 

 pandorina, volvox, and other small (essentially microscopic) forms, com- 

 paring them with animals of a similar degree of complexity, is given in 

 Binet's work on the psychic life of micro-organisms, a work without sen- 

 sational features, and with many suggestive and interesting statements. 

 But fixed plants have no psychic life ; their sensibility does not rise above 

 that of specific irritability, although often attaining a marvelous develop- 

 ment. Aristotle's notion, which is still too prevalent, of an ascending 

 complexity in vital phenomena from plants to man, should be wholly 

 abandoned. The only way of viewing nature, to secure proper interpre- 

 tation, is that of two parallel lines of development, one through motile 

 forms, and the other through fixed forms. Each line of development has 

 worked out peculiarities of its own— in fact, there is little agreement. If 

 the special senses of man and the highet animals show wonderful adapta- 

 tions, the special senses of plants, although very dissimilar, will, when 

 well known, appear quite as remarkable. 



The observation of Sachs, the venerable professor at Wilrtzburg, and one 

 of the most far-seeing of physiological botanists, is particularly pertinent in 

 this connection. " We have no necessity," he says, "to refer to the physiol- 

 ogy of nerves in order to obtain greater clearness as to the phenomena of 

 irritability in plants ; it will, perhaps, on the contrary, eventually result that 

 we shall obtain from the process of irritability in plants data for the ex- 

 planation of the physiology of nerves, and this, although it is as yet a 

 distant hope, gives a special attraction to the study of the irritable phe- 

 nomena of plants." Thp attitude of botany as a science in its historical 

 development toward plants as objects of study, has been most happily 

 characterized by Professor Patrick Geddes, of the University College, 

 Dundee, whose words I shall use in my closing remarks : " To the dawn- 

 ing intelligence of the race, the forest is vaguely astir with a life which 

 man does not clearly separate from his own— a mystery of growth which 

 has left its mark deep in the history of all religions. A later and more 

 self-conscious mind molds this omnipresent life into anthropomorphic 

 shapes ; so a Dryad hides in every tree, while Pan roams through the 

 glade. These anthropomorphic shapes are next formalized away from the 

 living realities they symbolize ; they become mere shadowy gods, then 

 fairies and fables. The tree (or what remains of it) is now something 



